Photographs
by Katt9966
Summary: An AU response to the Minor Character Challenge issued at the Shield Fanfiction Archive. Very dark, please read the warnings.


Title: - Photographs.

Author: - Katt.

E-mail: - kattanon@hotmail.com

Rating: - R.

Warnings: - This story discusses child abuse, if this subject upsets you please read no further.

Feedback: - Like it or loathe it let me know.

Archived: - If you'd like it I'd be honoured, just let me know. Archived at the Shield Fanfiction Archive.

Disclaimer: - I don't own any of the characters of The Shield, they all belong to Shawn Ryan and FX.

Author's Notes: - This is a very dark AU written in response to the Minor Character Challenge issued at the Shield Fanfiction Archive.

Photographs.

Tom Gannon hummed to himself as he packed the last of his desk contents away into a cardboard box. Today had been his last day; tomorrow he was off to the sunnier climes of California, and his dream job, a detective in the LAPD. Pulling open the last drawer of his desk he quieted down, and sat down in his chair, as he pulled out the slightly dog-eared file, which was the only thing in the drawer. He placed the file on the desk in front of him, and opened it up. The file itself was a copy; the original was down in central files on a shelf, forgotten by everyone but Tom, gathering dust. However, the three photographs which were paper-clipped to the first page, they were the originals. 

The first was a photograph of a little boy standing proudly in a garden next to a shiny, new blue bike. The boy was tall for his age, slim, dressed in jeans and a red tee shirt. His brown hair flopped over his forehead, getting into his eyes, and he had a wide, happy smile on his face. Tom gazed sadly at the photo knowing it was the last picture of the boy taken while he was still alive.

The next photograph in the file was the next photo that had been taken of the little boy. It was a crime scene photo. It had been taken in a local park; a couple of minutes walk from the boy's home. That was where his body had been found by a lady taking her dog for an early morning walk. He was lying face down by the swings. He lay with his head turned towards the swings, his eyes closed, one hand curled up by his face, the other flung out to one side. He was wearing the same jeans and red tee shirt as in the photo that had been taken just a day earlier. The back of his jeans was stained a dark colour, almost black, the material stiff where the blood had dried. Tom remembered standing in that playground, in the chill early morning, staring down at that little body, used and dumped like a piece of rubbish. He'd stared down at those telltale bloodstains, and had instantly known how the poor little soul in front of him had spent his final hours on earth.

The third and final photograph was the autopsy picture. The boy lay on the shiny, cold metal surface of the autopsy table. This was just a head and shoulders shot, but it told it's own story of how the little boy had died. The autopsy report had confirmed Tom's suspicions. The child had been raped, semen had been present. His body showed various bruises, signs that he'd been restrained, those around his wrists, where he'd been held down, were particularly vicious. However, it was his face that showed how he'd died. The boy's eyes were closed, and he looked peaceful, almost like he was asleep. Tom thought "almost" because the too pale skin and blue tinged lips spoke of death, not sleep. As did the five finger tip bruises that showed against the pale flesh. The five bruises that showed how a hand had been held over the boy's nose and mouth, probably in an effort to keep him quiet. However, the grip had been too hard, and too long, and the little boy had suffocated.

The mystery of how the boy came to be in the park had been solved when a missing persons report, filed that morning, led to the boy being identified. The parents were interviewed, and had both attested to the fact that sometimes the boy would sneak out of the house at night, and despite being punished for it he had continued to do it. He could be willful they said, disobedient. They'd told him it would get him into trouble, and now they'd been proven right. Tom hadn't liked either of them, and had felt sorry for the poor kid growing up in that house. The mother was a drunk; she'd crawled into a bottle of vodka years before, and had never been able to find her way out. The father was a successful lawyer in town. He also struck Tom as a cold, heartless bastard, and was Tom's number one suspect. Tom had stood in that little boy's bedroom that day, and had known, without a doubt, that this was the primary crime scene, not the playground. He'd looked around the neat bedroom, school books on the desk, books like Gulliver's Travels, Tom Sawyer and Treasure Island in the bookcase, toys put away in a couple of boxes under the window and a neatly made bed. It was that bed that had convinced Tom. If the boy had snuck out of the house after he'd been put to bed, as his parent's had said, why would he stop to make his bed first? Tom knew without a doubt that this was where that little boy had spent his last, terrified, pain-filled moments. Not out in a dark playground, but here in what should have been the safety of his own bedroom.

However, this had all happened ten years ago, and had been one of Tom's first cases as a new detective. The lead detective on the case had been a thirty-year veteran, with a couple of high profile cases under his belt. It had also been his last case before his retirement, and in Tom's opinion, he hadn't bothered to investigate it properly. He'd completely bought into the parent's story of a wayward child who'd come to a bad end. Tom had tried, had pushed, to change his mind. He'd pointed out that the boy's teacher had said he was a quiet, well-behaved, intelligent little boy, not the rebellious, mid-night wandering type. Then there had been the boy's underwear. His body had been dressed in a tee shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers, but no underwear. The theory was that the killer had taken them as a perverted trophy. Tom thought the boy had never been wearing any. He hadn't gotten himself dressed and then gone out. He'd been murdered, and then dressed, and the body taken out and dumped. In his hurry to dress the child the murderer had forgotten to put underwear on the body. However, no one had listened to Tom, and the murder had gone unsolved while they'd wasted their time looking for a predatory stranger, while, Tom had been sure, the predator was a lot closer to home. Tom had vowed that in years to come, no matter how close to retirement, he'd never neglect a case like this one had been neglected, he'd always give one hundred percent. Of course, he thought with a rueful smile, this was 1988, and retirement was a long way off yet.

He paused over the file; maybe he should leave it behind, put it back in its drawer. After all it would never be solved now. The clues had all gone cold long ago, even the forensic evidence was lost. A screw up with the paperwork had meant it had all been accidentally destroyed a couple of years ago, there was nothing left of the little boy except these photographs. However, as he gazed down at the smiling face, Tom felt a pang of regret, of guilt, that he'd never been able to bring the boy's murderer to justice, he'd never been able to lay him to rest. No, he thought, he wouldn't leave the file behind, and he placed it in his box. He would take it with him and put it into a drawer in his new desk, and do what he'd always done. He'd take it out every now and then, look at the photographs, and re-read the evidence hoping to find something. Little eight-year-old Holland Wagenbach could come to sunny California with him.

The case was ten years old. As Tom stared at the date he remembered the real kicker had been that the little boy had died on the night of his eighth birthday. That last photograph of him alive had been taken at his birthday party, just hours before his death. The shiny blue bike had been a present he'd only gotten to ride on once. If he'd lived he'd be eighteen now, ready to go out into the world, ready to begin a career. Tom wondered what the little boy would have grown up to be if he'd had a childhood, if he'd lived.


End file.
